It’s a no-brainer.
The UFC featherweight division was a twitching body about two spluttering coughs away from a death rattle until Conor McGregor’s lightning personality jolted it back to reanimation.
The 145-ers suffered from the “lighter division” syndrome which has seen the flyweight and bantamweight divisions get too oft overlooked, because a lot of fans had simply lost interest.
While purists would tune in to see the brilliance of Jose Aldo putting on a clinic against some poor shmuck, there was nothing there for the casual fans, the ones who spend the most money and put the meat in the seat.
They saw a division that was stagnating. Aldo was seen as so far ahead of the curve, that he would never be toppled from his perch. He was seen as this invincible character who would always find a way not to lose, as opposed to using his killer instinct to seal the win with a finish. That, to a lot of people, was boring.
You could see that the PPV numbers from events Aldo was headlining weren’t really where they should be for such an elite champion. The division was even punished in terms of card placement, most notably at UFC 169 where his bout with Ricardo Lamas played the support act to a bantamweight title fight between Renan Barao and Urijah Faber, despite heavier divisions traditionally taking precedence.
Flash forward to 2015 where the lighter of two title fights takes the starring role on the biggest card of the year, only this time it was middleweights Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman who were the co-main to the featherweights main. Only one man can be credited with that feat.
My initial pick for sportsperson of the year was going to be another challenger who shocked the world by quickly knocking out a dominant champion to become only the second belt-holder of the division.
However, Holly Holm’s spectacular achievement was upstaged by one Conor McGregor, who took just 13-seconds to usurp a king who’s reign at the top began a full three years before Ronda Rousey’s.
Not only that, he told everyone exactly what he was going to do before the fact, and when he fulfilled his vow, people were still shocked at what they had seen.
Since his promotional debut, McGregor has been bigger than MMA in Ireland. However, after shining bright during all those media obligations from the World Tour to appearing on Jimmy Kimmel, it looks like he’s set to succeed the likes of George St-Pierre, Jon Jones and Rousey to become the face of the sport.
That’s something Irish sports fans should be extremely proud of.
This is the fourth in a series of articles in which SportsJOE’s writers champion their sportsperson of the year. Read the case for Jon Walters here and the case for Joanna Jędrzejczyk here. Paul O’Connell’s case is outlined here. You can see the candidates below and vote for your favourite.
